So far, people's modern life is basically based on various utilization of primary fossil energy represented by petroleum, coal and natural gas. The development relying on fossil energy in the world for more than half a century results in a serious consequence, i.e. the increasing deterioration of global climate and environment. A climate change has become a tough restriction on the development of global economy, and an environment problem has become the most serious challenge to the sustainable development of the world.
On the other hand, fossil energy tends to be exhausted due to the continuous consumption. It has been predicted that the global petroleum reserves will be exhausted in around 2050, the global natural gas reserves will be exhausted at around 2050, and the supply of the global coal reserve may last for up to 169 years. Therefore, the energy problem has become an essential problem to the development of society and economy.
The key of the energy problem is to develop a low-carbon economy, that is, to employ clean substitutive energy, to improve the energy utilization efficiency and to recycle, so as to reduce the discharge of greenhouse gasses and other pollutants and obtain the greatest yield of the whole society accordingly. By technique innovation and system innovation of energy, the climate change may be alleviated and the sustainable development of human beings may be realized. Low-carbon economy is regarded as the fifth revolutionary wave after industrial revolution and information revolution, and low carbon and high efficiency will be a part of the future prevailing life mode.
In the prior art, attentions are much paid to the utilization of one of the energy sources, i.e., electric energy, and a technology for improving the utilization efficiency of electric energy by using information technology has been employed.
A Chinese scholar, Wu Jiandong, has put forward an interactive electric network, which realizes the intelligentized, informatized and classified interactive management of the overall flow of electric power industry, such as electric power generation, electric power transmission, power supply, power utilization, power marketing, classified scheduling of electric network and integrated services, etc., by equipping a system digital equipment and upgrading the electric network management system, based on an opening and interconnected information mode. However, the interactive electric network is not feasible due to the lack of specific technical solution for such network.
In USA, the Smart Electric Network in the Energy Plan put forward by the Obama government is to: establish a uniform electric network across the four time zones of USA; develop the smart electric network industry, improve the value and efficiency of the national electric network of USA to the greatest extent, and gradually realize the uniform networking management of solar energy, wind energy and geothermal energy in USA; and fully propel the distributed energy management.
The IEEE works out standards and communication principles for smart electric network (IEEEP2030), which includes three aspects of power engineering, information technology and communications.
Moreover, GE energy of USA also sets forth a concept of “smart electric network” (or named as energy interconnected network), that is, a bidirectional information flow, a multidirectional energy flow and a closed-loop automatic control are provided in the existing electric network, so that an intelligentized decision can be made on energy utilization, which is favourable to manage and improve the efficiency of energy utilization. Although the closed-loop automatic control according to the information from the information flow is an important direction of future electric network, GE energy does not put forward a specific technical solution.
US patent application US20090281677 to Taft et al. discloses a “smart electric network” for improving electric network management, which mainly includes aspects of: improving the digitalization level by connecting the assets and equipment via sensors; data integration system and data collection system; and the ability of analyzation, i.e., performing related analyzation according to the data obtained, so as to optimize the operation and management. Through the optimized management of each stage of the generation, transmission and retail of electric power, the enterprises involved can improve the operation efficiency and reliability and lower the costs.
US patent application US20090281677 assigned to Energy and Power Solutions discloses a system and a method for optimizing energy utilization and alleviating the influence on environment, where, data of a utilization end (i.e., energy consumption facility) is collected via a communication network, and the data collected is processed and analyzed, thus the manager of the utilization end may find a way for energy saving and emission reduction.
US patent application US20080039979 assigned to V2 Green discloses a system and a method for electric energy convergence and distribution, where, the electric energy provided by distributed power supplies via a manner of united power supplying is supplied to a utilization end, and the information of the power supplying end, the utilization end and the electric network is sent to a flow control center via the interconnected network. This patent application also proposes to take the battery of an electrically-propelled vehicle and a super-capacitor as the interconnected electric energy storage devices, which may be connected to the electric network intermittently or permanently.
In the above prior art, the intelligentization of the generation, transmission and utilization of electric energy is realized by combining the existing electric network with network communication technologies.
However, besides the above specific disadvantages, the existing energy utilization solution is further defective in the following three aspects.
Firstly, the above prior art only relates to the energy efficiency optimization of single energy (i.e., electric energy) utilization for the main purpose of equipment energy saving or enterprise energy saving, rather than realizing the integration and optimization of various types of energy sources and realizing urban and regional energy saving.
In the schematic diagram of an energy utilization system in the prior art shown in FIG. 1, an electric power plant 11, a boiler 12 and a fuel gas generating or storing device 13 independently provides electric energy, heat energy and fuel gas to a user via an electric network 21, a heating network 22 and a fuel gas network 23, respectively, for the use by a power utilization device 31, a heating device 32 and a fuel gas cooking utensil 33, respectively. The generation, transmission and use of these three energy sources are totally independent, those three energy networks are optimized respectively, and the matching between energy generation and energy utilization is basically based on steady-state optimization. However, no solution for coupling and utilizing different types of energy sources is put forward.
Next, as shown in FIG. 1, various energy sources are typically transmitted from the generation end to the utilization end unidirectionally in the utilization system thereof. In the solution of smart electric network that has been put forward, information collected via means such as smart meters may be transmitted bidirectionally in the information network. Moreover, if electric power is supplied unitedly by distributed energy sources, the utilization end may also generate electricity using solar electric power generation and transmit the electric power to the electric network. Therefore, in a smart electric network, the electric energy may also be transmitted bidirectionally. However, no solution for the generation and bidirectional transmission of energy except for electric energy is put forward.
Finally, in the prior art solution of smart electric network, information is transferred via an information communication network; however, it is generally used only for the management or decision of one of the power supplying end, the utilization end and the electric network, rather than for the energy efficiency optimization of the entire process of the generation, transmission and utilization of electric energy. The supplying end and the demanding end are optimized respectively, thus dynamic and cooperative optimization cannot be realized for both the supplying end and the demanding end.